Preview: / Sue Spaid interviewed by Mateusz Salwa / MS: Your recent book (Making Values Explicit. On How We Are Moved to Do, Act, Care, and Change, Ethics International Press Ltd: Bradford 2025) is mainly devoted to values. Interestingly, you claim that the very notion of “values” is undervalued in philosophy as it is broad and a bit fuzzy and, consequently, it may be used in many divergent contexts. At the same time, you make this traditional concept pivotal for your project. Why? SS: I’ve always been a sceptic of virtue theories. Everyone agrees that virtues exist, but no one really tries for them and everyone seems to find them unattainable. And if so, being virtuous is encouraged, yet not really necessary. We may say that virtues are impossible, but what is possible? What is it that people aspire to? Is it that people reach for them even if they may not be conscious of what virtues are, yet there is “something else” motivating them? So, I think that it just seemed to me that values were motivating lots of things and people were looking elsewhere. For example, we may ask how artworks work? Do they, for example, appeal to our emotions? But is it really emotions?
Sue Spaid (2026) studied this question.